Amazing Transformation Adding Tile To Our Earthen Floor A Complete Guide

This week on OSRL. We want this tile finished up. I'm excited. We kind of want to take you through this whole process from mix to laying the tile just to kind of show you how we've been doing this the entire time. Of course UV is literally on the tiles right now. Oh my goodness. In the absolute worst spot. UV. How's it going everyone and welcome back to the domestead. Now if you're wife and I were building our own home off-grid here in the Arizona desert and if you could do me a big favor and don't forget to like and subscribe because you'll want to see all this come together. Now if you caught our last episode then you know we got almost half of the tile done in this laundry room. It is really coming along and we are getting so close to having this floor finished but we can't do any more tile because we are just about out of sand. See this is about all the sand we got left and I'm just kind of scraping some off the ground. So in order to get more sand I'm gonna have to pick it up which means I'm gonna have to use our trailer here and currently it has a little bit of an issue. So it still has this flat tire. So I'm gonna have to see if I can jack this thing up, get that tire off, get it repaired and see if I can pick up some more sand. Also before I do any of that I got to empty it out because it still has gravel in here from the last time I went out to pick up some material. I'm gonna get this out, try and get the tire off, get it repaired, get some more sand. That's a lot to do before we could continue on with the floor but it is what it is. Alright I got the gravel unloaded and I was hoping to have a better jack than I do but I didn't have time to go get that so I'm gonna have to use the jack that came with the Tahoe and hopefully that'll work to lift this up. Got that tire off, took it to town, got it fixed, got it back on there ready to go. So I'm gonna see if I can get that sand today and that'll be nice. We'll be all ready when we're set to start laying tile again. Yeah. Alright so I went out early this morning and I picked up another load of sand. Almost two tons worth. Alright now I'm ahead of the game on this but it was either being ahead of the game or late to the game because they're closed on the weekend so you got to pick one or the other so I picked to be a little ahead. Alright look at this, look at this, we're all dressed up for a change. Look at that. So not too long ago I had to had to go away for a funeral. Kind of a sad event but those things happen in life and but today we got to celebrate something positive. Got to celebrate a wedding, a union. So you know so you got the sad times but then you got times like this, happy times. I'll get in time to get all dressed up and celebrate. Xuvia about to test the quality of the floor. Xuvia get off. Oh she's stepping on it. Doing well have you tried stepping on it? You want to give it a shot? Looking good. Damn. Yeah that's solid. Solid. So you're back out here you ready to get to it? You ready to start laying some more tile or you need some more time? You want me to start making a mix? Xuvia you want me to make a mix? You gonna make a mix? Alright I got all of our materials ready to go. I got water, we got dirt, sand. I'm gonna start mixing and we're gonna start laying some more tile and hopefully we can get this done in the next couple of days. We'll want this tile finished up. I'm excited. Xuvia isn't time for pets. It's time for work. She wants to lay down right in the center of all the action. Do you have a favorite part of this process? It's all amazing. Perfect. Dang you think we'll have this finished by the end of the day? It might be close. I never say never. If you feel you need to slow things down a bit I could get Xuvia out here to wreck some things. With the few days off did it take you any time to get back into it? Not really. So is laying tile just kind of like riding a bike? I guess it is. So I asked you what your favorite part of this was but you didn't have an opinion. Do you have a least favorite? Maybe leveling. Sometimes it's a little tricky. She's out there right now burying one of my gloves. I'll be snagging that later. I know where it is. Well this is that special time of year where it's winter in the morning and it's gonna be summer in the afternoon. So it was particularly cold this morning. Temperature's down in the 30s but it should warm up pretty quickly. I already got materials ready to go for today's mixes and we're gonna be starting to lay tiles down again soon. And I think we can finish this up today. All right like I said it's gonna warm up quick. I'm already got a layer off. But we kind of want to take you through this whole process from mix to laying the tile just to kind of show you how we've been doing this the entire time. Maybe it'll help some of you out if you're thinking about doing something the same. So I'm gonna take you through the mix process. Jess is gonna take you through the tile process. So I personally start here with one gallon of water. Now one part dirt to three parts sand. So whatever your one part is my part's gonna be the shovel. Some chopped straw. I've been using just a handful. One part dirt, three parts sand. One, two, three. Now you always have to kind of keep an eye on the mix and decide whether you want it a little more liquidy or a little bit more stiff. Now Jess has been liking these mixes a little drier so I'm going to add a little bit more. Just keep in mind try and keep your ratios the same. So a little bit of dirt, a little bit more sand. That's looking pretty good. Okay perfect. First mix ready to go. This is a must part of the process as well. Pets to the dogs. We've got the pampered princess here. UV the pampered princess. I'm going to take the earthen mix that Jim just mixed up and I'm going to spread some on the floor right where I want to put my next tile. And now I'm going to kind of comb it with this notched trowel and that'll put some grooves in our mud mix and I think that's supposed to help remove air pockets from under the tile. I don't know if this actually works that way with the mud versus like a mortar but I am going to use it anyway just in case. If anything it looks cool. And now I'm going to spread some of the mud mortar onto the back of this tile and now we lay it down. Now to get this level with the rest of the tiles we have a kind of system set up. We have a 360 degree laser level. Okay so the way this works is we leveled our first tile and then we turned on our laser level and I marked out on this level where the laser line was hitting. So now each subsequent tile I can just put this level down and I can see where the laser line is hitting and if it's right at that line then my tile is level. And if I need to adjust it I can just measure it right off of that line. So check on this tile here. You can see the line is a little below my mark so that means it's a little high. So I'm gonna take a rubber mallet and pound it down a little bit very gently so I don't break the tile. I usually check the corners and this one I can't see because someone's in the way. It's pretty close and that is right on too. Perfect. Okay and then the last thing is we want to space the tiles evenly. So we have these tile spacers and I put one in each corner. Actually I guess two to a corner. And that does look pretty good. Now we have this pipe coming up through the floor and I'm gonna have to measure out where this tile needs to be cut and then we're gonna have to cut it. It's looking like it's just gonna come up to part of the corner of this tile so I think maybe we can just cut the corner. Nice. Nice work. How's it fit? Okay. Looks like you got quite the tile there. You think you can cut that? Oh I can cut whatever you draw. How's it look? Good. I think I measured it a little off. There's like a lot of extra in there but that's okay. You're probably trying to be more safe than sorry right? Yeah. Alright we're reaching toward the end here. I'd ask you how you feel but you're not gonna feel any better until it's done right? But we're getting there. What do you think? Home stretch? Yeah. Almost home stretch. I'm gonna have to do this corner first and then work my way over so I don't trap myself. And that's the danger of kind of doing rooms like this. You don't want to make sure you box yourself in or something like that. So very smart. That's kind of how I had to lay down some of these cob layers and make sure. Work your way toward the door. Another tile piece for you ma'am. Thank you sir. I think something has been digging out here. Looks like Yuvia's found it too. Something other than her has been digging out here and now she wants to find out what that is. Alright so Jess has made some amazing progress and we have almost all these tiles down. Now I gotta take over. It's in the evening but I gotta hop in here and there's some things I gotta take care of. So I gotta put in the door threshold over here and put in some supports, put in some cob. That way Jess can finish off the tile work here and we'll also have a doorway which would be nice. So this is gonna look a lot more like a room real quick. Alright so we are back out here ready to work. And of course last night I came out here and put some boards and I got some cob just to kind of let Jess know where the boundaries are. Because this lady really needs to know where her boundaries are. She's constantly pushing past them and it just gets really bad. So do you kind of get where my boundaries are now? How are my boundaries looking by the way? Looks good. Looks good. Okay. So you know the tiles here. This wall here is definitely not super square with what's going on over here. As you can see these tiles they look really good coming out from this door. But over here it's gonna be a little wonky. But that's okay. I think we can get over that. This right here is a working mallet. Oh my goodness. Says there's important work to be done right now. It involves belly rubs. Okay so I said these tiles were gonna be kind of wonky. And this first one is gonna be the wonkiest of the wonky. It's gonna be like a little puzzle piece. So it's gonna be a little tricky to cut but I think I'm up to the job. Jess has complete faith in me. Helps to have the saw plugged in. Well I don't know. What do you think Jess? Well not bad. Not bad but not good either? It's good. Like a glove. That's a good teamwork right there. When it all comes together perfectly. Said it's time to go for a walk but look at this. Look at this cutie baby. She just wants to rest. Evie, you ready? Gotta go for a walk. Well I guess if she doesn't want to go for a walk I guess Jess and I will. You coming? You wanna take a walk? Come take a walk. If mama says we're gonna take a walk then I guess we're gonna take a walk. Unbelievable. Yeah I get no respect. That was my Rodney Dangerfield. What do you think? Yeah almost. Oh she's broken. See first she doesn't want to come for a walk and then she's next and you know she's rolling in the grass. But just an absolutely beautiful day for a walk. These temps are just about perfect. Yeah I think the temperatures are finally getting up to my comfort level. When we're on these walks and we're far back like that do you ever look at the homestead and just kind of like admire what we've done? Kind of seeing it from a distance? Yeah. Every day. So I see you putting down some more underlayers so that was not the last tile. We're gonna be putting a little bit more down? Oh just a few more. Just a few more. We should explain why the tile isn't covering the entire floor. For one thing there wasn't enough full size tile to cover the entire floor. But we're gonna be putting in some kind of furniture. There's gonna be a built in closet and a counter. I just figured those areas don't really need tile anyway. But we are gonna fill that in with more of the earthen flooring. And then we're gonna make sure everything is waterproofed. Okay. Is this the last one again? Your last tile? For reals this time. For reals. You're just messing with us. Alright, alright. Well here is the hero of the day. A fantastic job as always. Of course Yuvie is literally laying on the tiles right now. Oh my goodness. In the absolute worst spot. Yuvie. Hey Yuvie come here. She really loves. I don't know if it's because you've been working on it or something like that. But she is really interested in that area. So excellent job. The tiles are done. It looks fantastic. Yeah so the floor is in the laundry room is getting really close to being done right? Yes. Yeah so still quite a bit to do over there to kind of finish off the floor. But the majority of the work is probably pretty much done right? Yeah. You know Yuvie was just trampling on that but it looks like everything is pretty stable. I was kind of surprised how quickly that sets up. You know it's probably not dry but it's pretty strong. Yeah it's pretty firm. Oh and you know let me address real quick. Some people have been questioning why the floor and not the walls and the ceiling beforehand. And you know I addressed this in a previous video but I'll go over it again. I mean these floors are probably going to take the most amount of material. I just figure instead of closing off these spaces, leave these walls undone so that I can get more maneuverability with some of these materials. That's the main reason and I don't know if that's the correct way to do it. Generally I get why you would do the floors last on a conventional build. Because you don't want to like destroy the floors as you work on some of these other parts. But I think these floors that we're putting in are pretty durable. If I may add also for aesthetic reasons and I think it made it easier starting with the floor. Working with the tiles because we didn't have to be as precise with the cuts going along where the wall is. When we put the wall in it's going to be kind of overlapping over some of those tiles. So it's going to I think look a lot neater and nicer. I'm really blown away by how this room is looking. It's really moving along. I'm really excited. Thanks for joining us as this all comes together. As we're moving right along on this build. We'll catch you guys on the next video. Before you leave, don't forget to check out one of these videos over here. Alright man, that's it. Video's over. Video's over.